Broken (Reapers Reign, #1)

by Maree, Aleisha

  I grab the bag and head for the door. I shouldn’t be surprised to when it opens and standing there is Nan and Kash. I stand like a stone just staring blankly at them for what feels like forever. Nan pulls me out from the trance that I have allowed to swallow me up. She wraps me up in her arms. Kashie just places his hand on my shoulder, “Bro you all good? What the hell went down? Last I knew you were heading back here and would meet us for brunch. Then June rings the house and says that you need us and we better come quick. That Sarah-Jane’s been hurt and may not make it!” I hear fear in his voice. “Jamie rang saying you had left him two messages, one that he couldn’t make out and then the one saying you had hurt her? We haven’t heard from him since we told him what June said.” He pushes past me and into the room.

  I hear Jamie speak to them, “I’m here. I came as soon as I hung up.”

  I try not to get angry with my best friend as I look at him with a pained frown, “Why Brother? When I needed you, you never came?” I glare at him with all the anger I’ve been holding in.

  “Brother this isn’t——“I just cut him off with a glower as I turn to my Nan and Kash.

  “Um yeah, I’m sweet. I gotta go though, and take this stuff to Sarah-Jane. She’ll need it when she wakes up and she needs her blanket! I’ll see you all later yeah? Excuse me, Nan.”

  “Knox, look at me, Knox. Stop now! I’ll take you to Sarah-Jane shortly. I want to see if you are ok first.” Nan tells me in her firmest voice. Stepping up to me, she runs her finger tips over the marks that have painted my face from the night’s events that have ended in my Angel in a coma when she should be in my arms in that room over there with me fucking her each way till fucking Sunday.

  “I’m fine, Nan. Please get out of the way, please, I can’t do this with you now. I have to go. I have to get out of here!” I say, unable to look at her as I’m shrugging out of her grip.

  “Knox, you will stop right this minute and you will listen to me. I need to check you over and clean you up, you can’t go back there looking like you do right now. I need to know what has happened tonight and I need to see if you are hurt and ok before you go anywhere. You will be no good to her if you are not 100% so back up and sit down now!” Feeling deflated and so cold and alone, I just sit down and allow her to look me over as I try to fill her in on what has happened with the fucking jock squad. Kash and Jamie are stomping over in the corner, I see the anger burning all around them.

  “I tried to dial you from inside my pocket, I needed you and fast. I knew they would do this but not alone. I needed you by my side to take her away!” I look at him with hate in my eyes. I jump up, grabbing him around his neck, growling at him, “Where the fuck were you? Huh brother? Where were you?” His eyes roll as I shake him. His breathing flattens out as my rage flows through my body. He just wraps his hands behind my head and pulls me into him. We fall down to the ground in a heap. I just sit there and stare over him and his shoulder as he wraps me in a hug that should heal the hurt and take the memories away, but we are not little anymore and they don’t work the same way they used to.

  Nan is standing in my line of vision as I try to look past her. She worries and potters around on the phone to...I don’t know who. Kash pokes and prods and talks over and over. It all just sounds like gibberish to me. He and Jamie both pull me up to my feet and sit me on the chair where, only a few hours ago, I was watching my Angel read her book, the same book that still sits on the table next to it with her glass of water. Nan is off the phone. She grabs the bag from the floor and walks towards the door, clicking her fingers at me, breaking my trance. We can finally move and head to the hospital. I hope she hasn’t woken up whilst I’m not there. I don’t want her to wake up without me to see her beautiful eyes locked onto mine. I want to tell her I love her. I want to remind her of my promise, “See Angel? I told you that it would be ok and I would look after you.”

  The cold air hits my face outside. Damn, that feels so nice. A waft of rain and apple from the blanket I’m holding sweeps over my face. I take a deep breath. I’m coming, I’m not far away, Angel. Nan pulls up outside in record time and she squeezes my hand. “It’s ok Knox, it’s going to be ok.” She says it like she knows but she hasn’t seen the damage on her body or the nasty purple mark snaking its way from her temple down her face and neck or the hole they have cut into her skull. She hasn’t seen all the wires and the tubes or heard the sounds and beeps. She doesn’t know. She hasn’t seen it. I have and I did this. I know that there is no happy ending for us. It’s over. I killed it with anger and rage. But maybe, just maybe, she could just be sleeping. I hope that she’s just sleeping, that she will wake up for me, when I get there, like that princess, what’s her name? Sleeping Beauty. She gets a kiss from her true love and she wakes or some shit like that. Since the day I met her, I knew, I believed that she was my destiny, if our destinies belong to each other, she has to wake up.

  “Oh, she’s just sleeping now; they said to us that they put her to sleep to let her rest,” I say more to help myself than anything else. If I tell myself this spell then maybe it will happen. Walking up to those double doors hurts a lot. I pause, my chest goes tight, I can’t breathe, and my heart is pounding so loud I can hear that sucker in my ears.

  Kash places his hand on my shoulder. “It’s ok brother, I got you. Let’s go, yeah?” he says with sadness in his voice although I think he’s trying to quell it, trying to hide it for me.

  I look up into the eyes of my twin, “Sure.” My voice sounds distant, broken, hollow. I try for more, “Yeah, she will want to see you.”

  June is where I left her, sitting with her hands in Sarah-Jane’s. I suck in a deep breath; I can do this, I have to for her. I walk over. “How is she?” I ask.

  “No change,” June says in a voice that is shaky. Her bravery from earlier gone. Her eyes are red and puffy; she’s been crying. I can see the tears staining her cheeks.

  “You can take a break if you like. Go get coffee or whatever. My Nan is here, you could go together?” I lean down and kiss Sarah-Jane’s forehead. “Angel, see? Nan and Kash are here.” I force a weak smile and look up at June. “I got this.” I say like I really am sure that I do, when all I want to do is lay down with her and fall apart and die.

  Finally, she agrees. “Kash, you can go to grab us a coffee or something please?” He looks at me like I have two heads. “God, man, I’m fine. Just go already.” I close my eyes, take a deep breath in and when I open them they have gone and I’m alone with the other part of my soul.

  “What do I do now, Angel? It’s so empty in here, even with all the machines and the constant sound of them keeping you alive. Are you in there, my sweet Angel? Can you hear me? I need you.” I run my fingers across her temple, “Who will wrap my hands for a fight now, huh? Who will spar with me and keep me on my toes? Who will have my back? If it ain’t you, it’ll be no one! I’ll crumble, Angel; I’ll fall and not get back up. You’re the strength here, among us, it’s you, always. You hear me?” my voice is broken as it catches in the back of my throat, “You need to fight for you, for us. You have to show them, all of them, that they’re wrong. You will pull through this. Baby please, I can’t go through this life without you. And with the thought that it was me who did it, who took you away...”

  I’m quiet for a moment, “Pa always said, ‘Boy, you win some and you lose some.’ Well, I ain’t going to lose you, baby.” Looking around us, my voice drifts off. Fuck, why does it feel so empty and cold in here? Space falls in a strange way. It falls in on you and fades back all at the same time. I fan out her blanket over her beautiful body lying so still and alone and a tear runs down my cheek. Fuck it, I’m not going to have her fighting alone. I’ll show her by touch, warmth, voice and breath that I’m here. I’m not going anywhere; I’ll fight with her. Maybe, if she feels my heartbeat through to hers, they will sync up and be whole again. I kick off my high tops and climb in with her. I wince a bit from the pain in my ribs, pull her into me and wrap
her in my arms tight, just the way she likes it. She says it make her feel safe and gives her tingles in her toes. I pray for the first time since I was a little boy. I pray that we can do this. “Help her God, please give us a miracle.”

  The minutes morph into hours and the hours morph into what feels like days. Nothing changes. The world goes about its business; people move in and around us. I stand still and watch it all pass by me. With each tick of the clock, another piece of me goes with her, to her. I try to fix her, to fix this. But all the damn praying and soul giving, all the promises I make to God and the Devil, never come to much more than an empty feeling and a downright unbearable pain. Every passing hour I have to swallow the vile taste of anger down, it leaves a nasty tang in my mouth. It seeps into my bones and just about breaks me whenever I look up at June. She is doing her own praying, praying not to lose another child to the hands of another this time. It wasn’t her husband or society, it was me, Knox, fucking, Ambrose. I did this. I placed pain and hurt into this woman’s eyes and heart again, after all that she has had to endure.

  Once again, she will walk the steps of pure and utter pain, completely alone as it would seem Mr. Briggs seems to be dealing in a different way to us. I have heard her on the phone to him though and I know he’s been here twice. The nurse told me he was drunk and reeked of cheap perfume and smoke. This poor woman is losing it all. God, if only I hadn’t let them hurt us or let them get under my skin. The police have been and gone too, all the normal questions and wanting answers. Her father is John Fucking Briggs and, to him, I’m a hood rat who broke and beat up his daughter. They will come for me, that I’m sure of. The jock squad have denied all accountability for the night’s events, saying that I attacked them after they tried to stop me from hitting the said woman. The said woman... Fuckers, you know who she is, and you’re all sitting in John’s fucking pocket.

  I lean down and brush a stray hair away from my sleeping beauty’s face and lay a small kiss on her forehead. “I’m going out for a bit, Angel. I won’t be too long, don’t do anything while I’m gone.” The nurse is looking up at me when I turn. I flick her a wink, “I won’t be long. Keep her here until I get back will you. Don’t let her talk you into breaking her out of this joint!”

  She smiles, “Sure thing, Knox,” she says. “We won’t be hijacking the place in your absence. We will wait for you to do that.” These people that do this job are amazing. They keep so much shit together.

  As I head out I run into June. “I’m just going out to get her some fresh flowers, a new set of PJ’s and fresh socks. I need a shower,” I ramble off to her, meeting her tired, sad eyes that are sunken in as much as mine, if not more.

  “Ok sweetheart,” she says. How can this woman possibly still like me so much after what I have done? It’s like she can read my mind, “You know what, Knox? This isn’t your fault. You didn’t do this to her, it was a tragic accident; a series of events that led to this moment. It’s a moment that we didn’t want and an event that we don’t want to have to deal with. But it’s one we are stuck with, so we have to own it and push through. Which brings me to my next request; you may want to bring back your family.”

  She stops for breath, “We need to take the next step in this nightmare and let her go now, she needs to be let go. Her soul has already gone up to the heavens to her brother and now we are left with just a vessel of who she was. We are holding her here for our own selfish reasons. I have just come back from speaking with Dr. Roe and it’s time, Knox, she won’t come out of this. You know it as much as I do. You have seen the times we have tried to get her to wake up and bring her out of the coma and remove the breathing tube. It’s just not working. They have given her the rating of 3 on the Glasgow Coma Scale. And Knox, I’m sorry, but that means she’s dead. There is nothing there. We are, as we stand, at 15; that’s a big drop in numbers. She hasn’t responded to any pain tests. There haven’t been any movements, she has no speech, she hasn’t opened her eyes or even flinched, there has been nothing. It’s been four days now,” her voice cracks, she’s trying so hard to be strong for me, keeping her tears at bay, “and we don’t need to go through living in this limbo any longer. We have to take the next step and this is it. It hurts beyond belief and the pain is suffocating, but it has to be done. It’s decision time. We need to be strong for her now and, and let her find her way up there and pray that she watches over us until we meet again.”

  I’m knocked back, speechless. I’m like a deer in headlights. Stepping forward, placing one foot in front of the other as her hand takes mine and she walks with me. Heading for the day outside, I need air and I need it bad. I need to wash down this sick feeling in my gut with something other than the sickening smell of the hospital. I knew this day was coming. Holy fuck, I didn’t think it was coming today though. I want more time. I want her even if it’s just the shell laying there, not doing anything but looking beautiful. A crack to the side of my skull knocks me back hard. “What the fuck is this?” I look up and find John, Sarah-Jane’s dad, launching himself at me.

  “Whoa! Fuck! Back up!” I say. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “You son of a bitch, I’m going to kill you just like you killed my little girl. I fucking knew you were bad for her the moment I saw you.” He screams out at me, his whiskey-smelling breath hitting my nostrils.

  I can hear June screaming, “John, John, stop it right now!” But he doesn’t. He’s relentless in his quest to hurt me as much as he’s hurting. I get it and I take each blow he gives, knowing that I share his pain and I deserve it. Blow after painful blow; kick after a breath-taking kick, I allow it to ebb into me, to touch the depths of my bones. It’s a comfort, a relief from the pain I have already poisoned my body with. I’m spiralling down into a place where she is. I see her, her eyes, I can feel her touch, hear her laugh. I want to stay there with her but I’m ripped up out of the abyss of her and into the present pain of living without her, spitting and sputtering blood, gasping for air.

  “NO! NO! Let me go back down to her, please. Don’t let me up. I was drowning in her.”

  June is yelling; I can’t quite see where she is. I can’t really see much of anything. I don’t even see the next punch coming. I’m out, done, gone. I hear her, my Angel.

  “I know you’re hurting that I’m not here, that I’m asleep. I can’t come back to you just yet. But you have to get up and you have to do what you’re meant to do, to fight Knox. You’re destined to be a great fighter, I see it! I promise you that I’ll wait and that I’ll love you until the sun dies, not just when the moon kisses it goodnight. Get up and fight. Don’t let him get you. There will be a lot of pain coming, you need to be strong, baby. I love you.”

  “Ditto, Angel, ditto.”

  And so, I wake up. I look around; did that really just happen? I shut my eyes, shake off the surreal feeling that has invaded my body. When I open them, I am lying flat on my back, my knees up. I see June, and what looks like a body builder holding a shaking, angry John. I take a deep breath in and instantly regret that. “Brother, you ok?” I hear the voices I know so well.

  It’s Kash and Jamie with Nan and Pa in tow. Fuck, now I have to explain this shit to them. Pa will kick off for sure. I jump to the defence right away. “It wasn’t me, I didn’t do this. He came flying at me! I didn’t lay a finger on him Pa, I swear!”

  Fuck, talking and breathing hurts! My head is pounding. I can hear my heart in my ears and feel the warm stickiness of blood on my face, running down my neck. The breeze picks up and carries a scent of rain and apples across me. “SHIT! Boys, pull me up, NOW!” I scream. “I’ve got to get to her, I heard her, she needs me!” Moving is painful. I suck in a breath. My ribs feel broken. Surely not, he didn’t fuck me up that bad, did he?

  John yells “Stay the fuck away from her, you woman basher. You’re a killer, a monster. You stay away from her!”

  I shake my head. “I didn’t do that. I didn’t mean to hurt her. I would never!” I say, hurt lacing
my voice. Jamie turns back and sinks a punch right into his guts.

  “That’s for Knox. He ain’t what you think. If you knew him, you would know what kind of a man he is and what kind of pain he is feeling right now!” and then another crack sounds out as his hand meets the dick’s face “That there is for me. Don’t you ever lay a hand on my brother again. We all know who you are sitting with, Mr Briggs, watch yourself.” He says with such disgust I can almost taste it.

  “Sarah-Jane. She would be horrified by your actions here today John, and I am too,” says June. “How dare you, when you should be in there saying goodbye to her. You’re out here beating up the one person other than Brad that truly made our daughter smile and happy. You were too busy drinking and entertaining your little floozies to see what was going on with her. For months, she was out, living, being a carefree teenager, enjoying so much of life, wanting nothing but to share it with you, with us. Where the hell were you? Gone, that’s where you were. Checked out of our lives; checked into your new life full of whores, hotel rooms, and alcohol. And lies, John, a lot of lies and false expectations and images of who you are.”

  Her voice is harsh and cutting, “Knox and his family, they took her in; and me, they took me in too. They treated us like family, opening their home and hearts to us, and you, sweetheart, you were none the wiser! Now best you go sort your Goddamn self out because tonight we are turning off the machines and you won’t be there, reeking of alcohol and with Knox’s blood on your hands. You aren’t the only one hurting here, we all are, and he is just that little bit more. She was his. He made her happy, he made her smile. They share a love so magical that you would never be able to understand it. You have become so poisoned that I don’t even know who you are any more. They have a love, like the love that we had at the start. But even now, that’s gone. Just like you and I. Our life will die with our daughter tonight and I’ll be free from you, from the pain that I have had to endure with you and your antics since our son died. Be back here at 5pm. I will give you an hour with her alone before I allow her to fly away from this world of hurt and embarrassment that we have had to live with these past few years.”